Flourishing After Addiction with Carl Erik Fisher
Addiction psychiatrist and bioethicist Carl Erik Fisher explores addiction and recovery from science to spirituality, from philosophy to politics, and everything in between. He interviews leading experts in areas such as psychology, neurobiology, history, sociology, and more--as well as policy makers, advocates, and people with lived experience.
A core commitment of the show is we need more than medicine to truly understand addiction and recovery. The challenges and mysteries of this field run up against some of the central challenges of human life, like: what makes a life worth living, what are the limits of self control, and how can people and societies change for the better? These are enormous questions, and they need to be approached with humility, but there are also promising ways forward offered by refreshingly unexpected sources.
There are many paths to recovery, and there is tremendous hope for changing the narrative, injecting more nuance into these discussions, and making flourishing in recovery possible for all.
Please check out https://www.carlerikfisher.com to join the newsletter and stay in touch.
Flourishing After Addiction with Carl Erik Fisher
Fentanyl Nation: Toxic Politics and America’s Failed War on Drugs, with Ryan Hampton
Friend of the pod Ryan Hampton, a national addiction recovery advocate, author, and person in long-term recovery, is right in the middle of a hotly contested state assembly election in Nevada. It is, in fact, he is running in of the most hotly contested races in one of the most consequential states in U.S. electoral politics. So I’m so glad to have him on to talk about how to take care of ourselves and one another in this final stretch of election season, while also getting his unique perspective on the current state of the overdose crisis and drug policy overall.
Of course, we get a front-row seat to his experience within the political system at this intense time, including his thoughts about how to overcome polarization and advocate for important issues relating to addiction, recovery, and public health. But even better, Ryan has a great new book out called Fentanyl Nation: Toxic Politics and America’s Failed War on Drugs. which examines how fentanyl has contaminated the drug supply and driven overdose fatalities to unprecedented levels. In the book, he discusses not only the most proximate policy missteps and regulatory failures that have exacerbated the crisis, but also the big-picture political and cultural issues that have contaminated the dialogue and made change so difficult. We talk about homelessness, crime, corporate greed, punishment policies, the state of the crisis today, and how to connect with people on these important topics. Personally, I was inspired by his discussion of how recovering out loud and sharing his stories is making a real difference. I hope you do too.
Ryan Hampton is a national addiction recovery advocate, author, media commentator, and person in long-term recovery. He has worked with multiple non-profits nationwide to end overdose and served in leadership capacities for various community organizing initiatives. Hampton is in recovery from a decade of active opioid use and is a leading voice in America's rising recovery movement. He is the author of Unsettled and American Fix—and lives in Nevada with his husband, Sean, and their boxer dog, Quincy.
His next book, Fentanyl Nation, is available today!
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